Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

Franco hadn’t shaved in four days. He’d worn the same suit for as long. The majority of those days were spent downtown, hunched over an ever mounting collection of shot glasses at The Brotherhood Tavern. His right hand was splinted and wrapped in thick, bulky bandages. His fingers throbbed and he mixed plenty of painkillers with the booze to dull the edge while he plotted a thousand different ways to kill his nemesis, Mr. Wary. Evenings were another matter — those dim, unvarnished hours between 2 a.m. that found him alone in his Spartan bedroom, sweating and hallucinating, assailed by a procession of disjointed images, unified only in their dreadfulness, their atmosphere of alien terror.

He’d dreamed of her again last night, seen her naked and transfixed in the grand lobby of The Broadsword that belonged to another world, witnessed her lift as if upon wires toward the domed ceiling, and into shadow. Blood misted from the heights and spackled Franco until it soaked his hair and ran in rivulets down his arms and chest, until it made a puddle between his toes. He’d awakened, his cock stiff against his belly and masturbated, and after, sank again into nightmare. He was in Mr. Wary’s apartment, although everything was different — an ebony clock and shelves of strange tomes, and Wary himself, towered over Franco. The old man was garbed in a flowing black robe. A necklace of human skulls jangled against his chest. Mr. Wary had grown so large he could’ve swallowed Franco, bones and all. He was a prehistoric beast that had, over eons, assumed the flesh and countenance of Man.

“You worship the Devil,” Franco said.

“The Lord of Flies is only one. There are others, greater and more powerful than he. Presences that command his own obedience. You’ve seen them. I showed you.”

“I don’t remember. I want to go back.” A hole opened in the wall, rapidly grew from pinhole to portal and it spun with black and red fires. At its heart, a humanoid form beckoned. And when he surfaced from this dream into the hot, sticky darkness of Carol’s bedroom, he’d discovered her standing before her closet, bathed in the red glow. She cupped her breasts, head thrown back in exultance, sunglasses distorting her features, giving her the eyes of a strange insect. The door had slammed shut even as he cried out, and his voice was lost, a receding echo in a stygian tomb.

Now they were driving. Now they were parked atop a knoll and eating sandwiches and drinking wine in the shade of a large, flowering tree. A wild pasture spread itself around the knoll and cattle gathered in small knots and grazed on the lush tufted grass. The distant edge of the pasture was marked by a sculpture of a bull fashioned from sheets of iron. The highway sounds were faint and overcome by the sigh of the leaves, the dim crooning of some forgotten star on Carol’s AM radio.

Franco hadn’t told her of his apocalyptic visit to Mr. Wary, nor of his resultant termination from Jacob Wilson’s security attachment. The job wasn’t a pressing concern; he’d saved enough to live comfortably for a while. Prior to this most recent stint, he’d guarded an A-list actor in Malibu, and before that, a series of corporate executives, all of whom had paid well. However, he was afraid to speak of Wary, wouldn’t know where to begin in any event.

He lay his head in her lap and as she massaged his temples, he wondered about this radical change in her personality. He’d not known her to savor a tranquil pastoral setting, nor repose for any duration without compulsively checking her cell phone or chain smoking cigarettes. Her calm was eerie. As for himself, one place to get drunk off his ass was the same as another. The wine ran dry, so he uncapped his hip flask of vodka and carried on. Cumulus clouds piled up, edges golden in the midday sun. He noted some were dark at the center, black with cavities, black with the rot of worms at the core. His eyes watered and he slipped on a pair of wraparound shades and instantly felt better.

“Mr. Wary and I are through,” she said.

“Oh? Why is that?” Had the crazy bastard mentioned his confrontation with Franco? Surely not. Yet, who could predict the actions of someone as bizarre as Mr. Wary?

She stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lighted up. “I’m cured.”

“Wonderful.”

“My nightmares are getting worse, though. I’ve dreamt the same thing every night this week. There’s a cavern, or an underground basement, hard to say, and something is chasing me. It’s dark and I don’t have shoes. I run through the darkness toward a wedge of light, far off at first. It’s an arch and red light is coming through it, from another chamber. I think. Nothing’s clear. I’m too scared to look over my shoulder, but I know whatever’s after me has gained. I can feel its presence, like a gigantic shadow bearing down, and just as I cross the threshold, I’m snatched into the air.”

“The tentacles?”

“Nope, bigger. Like a hand. A very, very large hand.”

“Maybe you should see a real doctor.”

“I’ve got four pill prescriptions already.”

“There’s probably a more holistic method to dealing with dreams.”

“Ha! Like hypnotherapy?”

“Sarcasm isn’t pretty.” Franco sipped vodka. He closed his eyes as a cloud darkened the sun and the breeze cooled. He shivered. Time passed, glimpsed through the shadows that pressed against the thin shell of his eyelids.

Branches crackled and the earth shifted. He blinked and beheld a blood red sky and a looming presence, a distorted silhouette of a giant. Branches groaned and leaves and twigs showered him, roots tore free of the earth and grass, and he rolled away and assumed a crouch, bewildered at the sight of this gargantuan being uprooting the tree. He shouted Carol’s name, but she was nowhere, and he ran for the car parked on the edge of the country road. Behind him, the figure bellowed and there came a crunching sound, the sound of splintering wood. A dirt clod thumped into his back.

Carol was already in the car, driver seat tilted back. She slept with her mouth slightly open. The doors were locked. Franco smashed the passenger window with his elbow and popped the lock. Carol’s arms flapped and she covered her face until Franco shook her and she gradually became rational and focused upon him. Her glasses had fallen off during the excitement and he was shocked at how her pupils had deformed into twin nebulas that reflected the red glow of the sky.

“Drive! We gotta get the hell out of here.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending, and when he glanced back, the monstrous figure had vanished. However, the tree lay on its side. She said, “What happened?” Then, spying the ruined tree, “We could’ve been killed!”

He clutched his elbow and stared wordlessly as the red clouds rolled away to the horizon and the blue sky returned.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

He looked at his arm. He was bleeding, all right.

The doctor was the same guy who’d splinted his fingers. He gave him a few stitches, a prescription for antibiotics, and another for more pain pills. He checked Franco’s eyes with a penlight and asked if he’d had any problems with them, and Franco admitted his frequent headaches. The doctor wore a perplexed expression as he said something about Coloboma, then muttering that Coloboma wasn’t possible. The doctor insisted on referring him to an eye specialist. Franco cut him off mid-sentence with a curt goodbye. He put on his sunglasses and retreated to the parking lot where Carol waited.

She dropped him at his building and offered to come up and keep him company a while. He smiled weakly and said he wasn’t in any shape to entertain. She drove off into the night. He turned the lights off, undressed, and lay on his bed with the air-conditioning going full power. His breath drifted like smoke. He dialed Mr. Wary’s number and waited. He let it ring until an automated message from the phone company interrupted and told him to please try again later.